In this lesson, you will learn about two opposite words that are very common in Korean. You will learn how to use 포함하다 to include something, and how to use 제외하다 to exclude something. Let’s get started.

To Include: 포함하다

Just like most verbs, “포함하다” can be placed at the end of a sentence. When used like this, 포함하다 indicates that something “includes” something. For example:

This sentence is understandable in Korean, but it usually sounds more natural to use 포함되다 to indicate that something “is included.” Of course, if you use 포함되다, it cannot act on an object because it is a passive verb. Therefore, ~이/가 should be included on the noun that is “included.” For example:

Although 포함하다 and 포함되다 can be used at the end of a sentence like this, it is often used in the middle of a sentence (at the end of a clause) to indicate what is included in a situation. You learned about the ~아/어(서) in the previous lesson and how they can be used to connect two clauses. You can attach ~아/어 to 포함하다 in sentences where you want to indicate what is included. For example:

In Lesson 43, you learned about ~(으)면. Instead of using ~아/어(서), it is possible to attach ~(으)면 to 포함하다. This would more appropriately translate to “if …,” but the result of the sentences would be the same. For example:

Like the word “포함하다,” 제외하다 is often used in the middle of a sentence (at the end of a clause) to indicate what is (or isn’t) excluded in a situation. To create this meaning, you can place “제외하고 OR 제외한” after the noun you want to exclude. For example:

Note that while ~아/어(서) is used with 포함하다 (to make 포함해(서)) to indicate what is included, it is not added to 제외하다 to indicate what is excluded. If this was done, it would be understandable, but strange.

Conversely, while adding ~ㄴ, or ~고 to 제외하다 (to make 제외한 or 제외하고) is natural, it would sound slightly unnatural to attach either of these to 포함하다.

These constructions can then go in sentences where appropriate, for example:

Notice the grammatical principles that are being used in the sentences above with 제외한 and 제외하고. When using “제외하고” the sentences are essentially split into two clauses – and you could see them as two separate sentences. For example:

열 명을 제외하고 = Except for 10 people사람들이 다 죽었어요 = Everybody died

However, when “제외한” is used, it is (through the use of the ~는 것 principle) describing the upcoming noun. Just like any other noun being described by a preceding clause using ~는 것, we can dissect the descriptive clause. For example, here is a regular sentence with the noun “학생” not being described by anything special:

학생들은 수업을 듣고 싶지 않아 = The students don’t want to come to class

As you learned in Lesson 26, you can describe “학생” with verbs. For example:

In this same way, 제외하다 describes a noun. For example, here is a regular sentence with the noun “사람” not being described by anything special:

사람들이 다 죽었어요 = Everybody died

With the same grammar that you learned in Lesson 26, you can describe “사람” with 제외하다. For example:

열 명을 제외한 사람들

This is difficult to translate to English because it isn’t a full sentence. However, just like our example from above (내가 가르치는 학생들 = the students that I teach) we have a noun being described by a preceding clause. This is hard for an English speaker to wrap their head around, but try to understand that the underlined section of the sentence below is describing the noun “사람.”

You don’t really need to worry about this. However, it’s good practice to connect the dots with the grammatical principles in your head.

Now, if the noun that is being described by “제외한” is also being described by another verb, it is better to use “제외하고.” For example, if the sentence above said:

열 명을 제외한 그공장에서일한 사람들이 다 죽었어요

Notice how far the descriptive word (제외한) and the noun (사람들) are from each other. Because there is another clause that is also describing the noun in the sentence (“그 공장에서 일한”), we essentially have two verbs describing the same noun – and this sounds weird in Korean. In these cases, although both sentences would be understood, it would be more natural to connect 제외하다 with the other descriptive clause using ~고 instead of using “제외한.” For example:

Though I have covered everything I would like to cover regarding 제외하다 and 포함하다, there is one more word I would like to talk about before finishing this lesson.

Outside of: 외에

The word “외” could be talked about in another lesson, but I felt this lesson would be fitting because of the similarities with how the words 제외하다 and 포함하다 are used. I’m not sure if you have been brushing up on your Hanja (Chinese characters), but the character 외 in Hanja is 外. This character means “outside” and is used in a lot of Korean words.

Early in a sentence (or referred from another sentence) some noun will be mentioned. Placing 외에 after that noun creates the meaning of “outside of (that noun)” or “other than (that noun).” For example:

그 선생님 외에… = outside of that teacher (other than that teacher)…
그 여자 외에… = outside of that girl (other than that girl)…

When something is being referred to from another sentence, it is very common to use “그” before 외에. For example:

그 외에… = outside of that (other than that)

I spent a few minutes trying to figure out if the meaning of this was more similar to 제외하다 or 포함하다. Are we excluding something here? Or are we including something here?

The answer in my mind is; neither. We’re not including or excluding anything. 외에 allows the speaker to talk about all other things outside of what was mentioned before, regardless of if it was included or excluded (as per the rest of the sentence). You could find a natural way to translate “외에” to “in addition to” or “except for” depending on the situation. For example: